Saturday, January 18th, 2014

Before the Senior Bowl begins in earnest with practices on Monday, the biggest contest on the pre-draft all-star game schedule thus far came Saturday with the East-West Shrine Game, televised on NFL Network from St. Petersburg, Fla.

The East won Saturday’s game, 23-13, but the final score was essentially meaningless. Instead, the game served as the culmination of a week-long opportunity for 2014 draft prospects to showcase their talents to NFL coaches, scouts and executives in hopes of being among this year’s 256 draft selections.

Which players made impressions, positive or negative, in Saturday’s game? While it’s hard to make any big takeaways from the game, as the practices actually hold more value in the all-star game evaluation process, there were a players who might have made scouts want to go back and take another look at their tape, for better or for worse.

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

College football all-star game season is here, a time for the nation’s top senior prospects to catch the eyes of NFL scouts in a variety of showcase games, including Saturday’s Shrine Game (4 p.m. ET, NFL Network).

There are a plethora of intriguing prospects participating in the game.

Friday, November 1st, 2013

The quarterback crop for the 2014 NFL draft will be greatly influenced by the potential early declarations of Teddy Bridgewater (Louisville), Marcus Mariota (Oregon), Brett Hundley (UCLA) and Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M). Among the senior quarterbacks, however, there are two who stand out from the pack: Fresno State’s Derek Carr and San Jose State’s David Fales.

I grade both Carr and Fales as first-round draft selections. The rest of the group combines a mixture of solid physical ability, good makeup and intangibles, but none of them put it all together. (Then again, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers weren’t the total package when they were drafted either)

Overall, this year’s quarterback class is much deeper than that of the 2013 NFL draft, which had just three quarterbacks selected in the first three rounds and 11 total quarterbacks selected.

From now until the week before the Senior Bowl, I will be releasing a set of rankings for one position group each week, breaking down the top 2014 NFL draft prospects at each position. These rankings will include seniors only.